At the recent Senior BioEconomy Leaders Conference (ABLC) in Washington, biotech companies said, Biotechnologies provide more sustainable biobased chemicals that can help achieve net zero emissions. At present, significant investment is pouring into the biob-based chemicals industry, and industry development is accelerating.

The American company Genomatika is a star company in biosynthesis. The company's founder and CEO Christophe Schilling said biotech will help achieve a better future and consumer brands will be more actively involved in the industry than ever before. Giniomatika has three technology platforms (C4, C6 and C8-C18 molecules) with a total addrestable market value of $30 billion. The company has received significant investment in recent years. A large plant in Italy that uses its 1, 4-butanediol bioprocess has been operating since 2016. Cargill and Helm also recently announced a US $300 million investment to build a larger production plant in the US state of Iowa. In March, Genomatika and Japan's Asahi Kasei announced a strategic partnership to commercialize renewable nylon 66 made from Genomatika's bio-based hexamethylenediamine monomer. Through this partnership, Asahi Kasei hopes to support its goal of providing more sustainable nylon 66 for the automotive and electronics industries based on plant-based raw materials, accelerating the achievement of its corporate sustainability goals.

Jennifer Holmgren, chief executive officer of Lanzer Technologies, echoed Schilling's optimism about renewable materials. Founded in 2005, Longzer Technologies focuses on the conversion of gases from industrial waste, biomass and other sources into fuels and chemicals. Holmgren's customers and partners have committed to invest approximately $800 million to date in the development of production facilities using Longzer technology, including two commercially operating plants and seven plants under construction. One plant has been in operation since 2018 and has achieved its expected productivity. In addition, LanzaTech Technologies announced on March 8 that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement with AMCI to officially list on NASDAQ through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC). The combined company will be renamed LanzaTech Global. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022 and is valued at approximately US $1.8 billion. At that point, the company can accept more investments.

US Origin Materials has raised US $925 million through the SPAC approach in 2021. Chief executive John Bissell told this ABLC conference that managing the company's two projects under construction was Origin's top priority. One of the recently announced projects is a US $750 million production facility in Geismar, Louisiana, which will convert about 1 million tonnes of wood residue annually into chloromethylfurfural (CMF) and hydrothermal carbon (HTC). CMF, which can be used to produce polyethylene terephthalate (PET), is building strategic relationships with three of the world's largest buyers of PET by participating in an alliance funded by Danone, Nestle and PepsiCo. The three companies together consume 4.75m tonnes of plastic a year, about the output of 20 commercial-scale facilities, Mr Bissell said.

Other biomass chemicals companies are also gaining traction with investors. Founded in 2016, Solugen applies synthetic biology, metal catalyst engineering and modular plant design to produce cost-competitive emerging specialty chemicals for water treatment, concrete and crop nutrition, and is the world's first and only producer of biobased peroxide solutions. In 2021 Solugen raised $350 million in Series C funding, which it will use to expand production. Solugen shipped about 22,700 tons of products last year, generating nearly $117 million in sales.